THIS TAPE HAS BEEN RECORDED ON THE 2ND JULY 1979 AT 16 COWGILL STREET, EARBY. THE INFORMANT IS HORACE THORNTON, TAPER AND THE INTERVIEWER IS STANLEY GRAHAM.
Tape 79/AD/02
So, after your father died ..obviously, as you say, your father were one of the aristocracy in the mill and it’d be a big change for your mother, she’d feel it. Now before you go on to tell me how she did make a living, how about parish relief?
R - Never got parish relief.
Never got parish, no, that's all right because we come on to things like that later, but I was just wondering, she was in a position where she had to make enough money to keep the family. What did she do Horace?
(50)
R- Well, washing and we looked after the Church and when me father died in 1916 I had a brother that were just learning to weave, that were at Carleton Mill, learning weaving. Well it weren’t much of a shop weren't Slingsby’s, poor pay. So I had an uncle that were weaving in Broughton Road, Rycroft and Hartleys ... well it weren’t Rycroft and Hartley then, it were Wilkinson, Jimmy Wilkinson and Company down Broughton Road. He [the brother] went there learning to weave and he were there weaving for a while. Then I started working, I were twelve, started half time, the day I were twelve I started half time, doffing at Slingsby’s Mill. It were alternate, six o’clock in the morning, work till dinner time, and then school in the afternoons. Then the following week alternate. [My mother worked half time and she told me she liked working in the afternoons best as she hadn’t to get up so early. SG.]
Did anybody, any other women round about do the same thing, taking washing in, or child minding?
(100)
R – No, they nearly all worked, went to the mill. You see there were weavers wanted, there were card room operatives there were winders and beamers…
And is that house still standing?
R – Yes, very nice house.
Now, what exactly did your mother cook on?
R - We had a gas oven and the fire. And she cooked on the fire and in the side oven as much as ever she cooked, she didn't like the gas oven, didn’t bake bread in it. Always baked on Thursdays.
Yes. Now when did she first have a gas oven?
R – Well, they had it all my time. Yes.
And what day did the make bread?
R- Thursday.
Thursday. Aye
R- She baked at Thursday …
How much did she make at one time?
R - Well, about a stone and a half. [21lb.]
About a stone and a half of flour?
R – Yes, a stone and a half of flour. But there were pastry and other things amongst it. pasties and sweet loaves, she always had plenty about like that.
Pies, did she bake pies?
R - Baked pies, always meat and potato pie, invariably at Thursday. Mondays we had the cold meat ... and then….
Resurrection!
R- Yes. Tuesday there’d be no butcher open, or there might be .. just have liver or something like that. A bit of stewed meat. And then it’d be meat on Wednesday
(150)
(5 min)
and meat and potato pie at Thursday. And there were a fish man used to come round, we’d have fish at Friday.
Yes. When you say the fish man used to come round….
R- From Skipton.
Yes. Horse and cart?
R- Yes, horse and cart.
Aye, that’d he delivered by rail to Skipton.
R - It would.
Were it good fish?
R- Yes, it were fresh fish you see and cheap. They called him George Wood.
George Wood. Any idea were that fish came from?
R- I haven’t. It might be sent from Leeds you see. In small quantities, same as he’d want, come from Leeds.
Yes. Very well organised thing the transport of fish by rail in those days, very well organised.
R - Yes, It was, it was. You see it were always here on the station at six o’clock. It hadn't come the night before. It were on station here at six o’clock in the morning and you could go and collect it.
That’s at Earby?
R – Yes, at Earby.
Now, other things that she made. Did she make jam?
R- Always.
Marmalade?
R- No, we weren't marmalade people, never made marmalade but we always used to get blackspice and gooseberries out of the garden and…
Now, wait a minute, blackspice ... ?
R- Blackberries.
Blackberries, I’ve never heard them called that.
R - Blackberry, we always called them blackspice, well they were spice to us.
[Spice is a dialect word for sweets.]
Yes aye, sweets, that’s it, yes.
R - They stare and all when you says spice, you mean spice .., but blackspice.
Yes, that's blackberries, aye. How about pickles?
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R- Pickled onions made her own pickles .. she used to make her own sauce, Yorkshire Relish, she had the recipe and very simple to make. You could make a quart for nearly the price of a quart of vinegar. There isn’t much to it, pickling spice and a bit of corn flour to make it thick and you left it without corn flour to make it thin.
Aye. And did she make homemade wine or beer?
R – Yes, particularly Burnet, do you know what Burnet is?
Synonyms---Garden Burnet. Common Burnet. Parts Used---Herb, root. Habitat---Grows in moist meadows and shady places, chiefly in mountainous districts, almost all over Europe. In Britain it is not uncommon, but is rare in Ireland. It is cultivated to a considerable extent in Germany for fodder, and has been grown here with that view. It will grow tolerably on very poor land, but is not a very valuable fodder plant. Parts Used Medicinally---The herb and root, the herb gathered in July, and the root dug in autumn. Medicinal Action and Uses---Astringent and tonic. Great Burnet was formerly in high repute as a vulnerary, hence its generic name, from sanguis, blood, and sorbeo, to staunch. Both herb and root are administered internally in all abnormal discharges: in diarrhoea, dysentery, leucorrhoea, it is of the utmost service; dried and powdered, it has been used to stop purgings. The whole plant has astringent qualities, but the root possesses the most astringency. A decoction of the whole herb has, however, been found useful in haemorrhage and is a tonic cordial and sudorific; the herb is also largely used in Herb Beer]
I've heard of it but …
R - Well it grows on railway embankments and that, the only place it does grow, where the grass isn't cut. And they've like a red, a red bob on the end, and we used to go gathering a pillowcase full. We’d go across the railway, down Skipton railway, it's quite near Carleton. We used to go on to the railway line and get a pillowcase full and put them to steep in the baking bowl, you know, the baking bowl's so big, she used to be down her knees kneading, not a bit in a fancy bowl on a table, down on [the floor]
Aye ... Three foot across, aye.
R - Aye that’s what she used to bake in. And, and the old fashioned bread pot used to be full at Thursday night.
Yes. Tell me something, you just triggered something off with me now, can you ever remember babies being bathed in the bread bowl?
R - No, no. Not in t'bread bowl, but she might have done, might have done.
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I've seen it. I've seen it done, I was just wondering.
R - Yes. Might.. ah it would be because me mother'd never get the big tin bath out to bathe me sister and me brother in. It’d be the baking bowl.
Aye. Funny, no one’s ever mentioned that before.
R- It would be. It’d be the baking bowl because I've heard of babies being bathed in t’dolly tub. And a woman told me she couldn’t afford a pram and she kept her children, she'd two young uns, she kept them in the dolly tub to stop ‘em straying. popped them in the dolly tub to play.
Did she make any of her own medicine?
R- Yes, one thing, and it were sugar, butter and vinegar. I think that’s what it were. And she used to warm it up in a cup over a light, over a candle and if we were coughing she’d just come and give us a spoonful and I make it up for our grandchildren now if they have a tickling cough.
Aye. I’ve never heard of that one Horace.
R- Vinegar, sugar and butter.
Aye. Sounds like good stuff.
R- Well it were. And a good spoonful, a good spoonful of butter, a spoonful of vinegar a spoonful of sugar and just warm it till it all melted and give it to ‘em warm. You see you didn't need much at once. Eh, I can see her now coming wit' cup, coming upstairs when we were puffing at night as they used to call it. ‘Stop your puffing!’ and give us a drink of this and it did.
(300)
Aye. How about the old fashioned ones, you know. Did she make any other sort of medicine?
R- Not that I know.
Can you remember any old fashioned remedy she used?
R - That's the only one I can remember, of course I use it now for any of our grandchildren.
How about a sock round your neck it you had a sore throat?
R - Oh yes, and it acts, it does, it does act.
Yes it does, especially it you've got sweaty feet. Aye.
R – Aye, but it does work, anything wool round your neck.
Yes, how about friar’s balsam?
R- Well. Iodine we used to have and friar’s balsam on a sugar lump. Aye. That’s what we did.
That's it, aye. Terrible stuff. I used to hate it.
[Friar’s Balsam. A stimulating application for wounds and ulcers, being an alcoholic solution of benzoin, styrax, tolu balsam, and aloes; compound tincture of benzoin]
R – Aye. Or friar’s balsam in a bowl of hot water and breathe … and a cloth over it.
Yes, inhale it, one of my mother’s stand byes was glycerine, lemon and honey. Now wait a minutes what’s the other thing besides friar’s balsam, there is something else I remember… Oh, brimstone and treacle,
R- Oh, always that stuff in Spring, always that stuff.
Aye. To clear your blood…
R- Yes, well it did. Aye, my wife tells about her mother in the Spring, giving them brimstone and treacle.
1 often used to wonder, they used to think sulphur was marvellous stuff. It didn't matter what you had wrong with you, “It's your blood.” Aye. Something connected with that, tonics. You know, at one time, you know you’d go to a doctor, and he’d look at you and he’d say “Ah yes, general debility. You need a tonic.” And they used to give you this stuff didn’t they, you know?
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R- Me mother always had, they called it Advocaat. She used to make gallons of that because she could always go across to the farm and get eggs and cream ad lib. All you had to do was get the rum or brandy, we’ve drunk gallons of that.
Yes. Great stuff. How did she make it? You tell me how she made It Horace.
R- Well she used to break the eggs into a bowl and cut lemons up and put them on. No, she didn’t break them…. She didn’t, she used to put the lemons on to it and the shells melted. They did, I can remember it in a big, in a big bowl, And all the
Shells and everything went in. I thought it …
That's it. Put them in the lemon juice and after two or three days if you keep rolling them about there is just a skin left.
R- Yes.
And that's all you take out is the skin of the egg. That's it, the same stuff yes. And that, when you come to think, oh it’s real stuff is that. I am a great believer in that myself. I’m still old fashioned I am afraid. What did you usually have for your breakfast Horace? We are talking now about, say, school days.
R- Well, porridge, always porridge.
What did you have on your porridge?
R – Treacle.
When you say treacle do you mean syrup or black treacle?
R- Black treacle. We used to go to the shop and they had it in a barrel and you took a pint pot and they ran it full of black treacle. Golden syrup, poor folks didn't have golden syrup they had black treacle.
Anything else for breakfast, do you know, did you ever get an egg?
R- We’d have jam and bread. Well eggs, we had them. You could have them any time you see when you had them to go at. And you were buying them, there’d happen be fifteen for a shilling.
Aye, not a dozen? Fifteen? Aye.
R- Aye, like they were twelve pennies for whatever you got. They went up in quantity for the shilling you see, usually come round Easter and it was so many for a shilling and the quantity went up more.
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Ah, I see, I’m with you now. Then like, you went to get your eggs, you gave them a shilling and they give you so many.
R- Yes, aye, that were it. And we used to use that water glass. What were it, Isinglass, we used to call it water glass.
Water glass, aye, for .. well I think isinglass is the same thing.
R- In these big earthenware pots, you used to dive in and get them out in winter time. All slimy and… but it were the only way of preserving eggs because they hadn't brought breeding to the perfection it is now and there were no eggs in Winter, or very few.
That is another thing that crops up time and time again Horace. The fact that people have got used to the fact now that at any time of the year you can go and buy strawberries, lettuce, tomatoes and eggs, stuff like this, whereas at one time there were certain seasons for certain things.
R- We only had vegetables when they were in the garden, that were that, and in Winter time it were dried peas and beans.
Aye, a bit of sprouts like, those ...
R- Sprouts and Savoy cabbages.
R- We always had a garden or two gardens, always, and you depended on what you grew. But we never grew enough potatoes to keep us, you bought your potatoes.
Yes well there is a section on gardens, we are coming on to that in a second. Well, anyway we are on it now. Did you eat all the fruit and vegetables that you grew or did you give some away or sell them?
R- We’d give them away, anybody who'd want them, and swap…
Aye, that’s it, and then folk would give you some of their surplus. Yes.
R- Yes, swap.
Did you have a pudding every day?
R- Practically, happen not at Monday, it were a busy day were Monday. She were probably washing and it wore cold meat and if there'd been any potatoes left at Sunday it were warmed up potatoes, otherwise it were mashed potatoes.
What sort of pudding?
R- Well, mainly suet, it’d be suet.
Ah, good stuff, sticks to your ribs.
R- Yes.
Can you remember or make a guess at how much milk your mother'd get a day?
R- Well, we just got it from the farm ad lib. It were “Take t’can and get t’milk.” Two quarts, we used to get a two quart can and it were there for the taking you see?
How much were milk then?
R- Tuppence a pint, fourpence a quart. But you see my uncle, the farmer, hadn’t been married, he lived on his own and when his father and mother died he lived on his own and me mother baked for him and cleaned for him. It were Exchange and Mart sort of thing but we just went for milk and eggs. And he made butter. Me mother used to go and make butter at Friday. She cleaned up for him at Friday and made buttery and you see we just had fresh butter as we wanted it.
Did you ever have any margarine?
R- During the war. I remember going to Skipton and queuing up for it.
Ah now, you say you went to Skipton and queued up for it. Where did you queue for it.
R- Maypole Margarine.
Maypole.
R- Big long queue. I remember that there were a man stood with his arms across the door like with his back to t’folk, and just let two or three in at once. And there were, you know how they used to be cutting it off a big lump and patter, patter, patter and that's how you got it. [By ‘patter’ Horace is referring to knocking the margarine up into a square block with butter pats so that it could be wrapped neatly in greaseproof paper.] And it weren't rationed then you see, when you had to go and queue up, but once it were rationed you see, you got your ration.
Yes. Well we'll come on to rationing in a bit. Dripping?
R - Well, we always got dripping from the butcher, aye always. You could go and get good beef dripping, real stuff. Now when the youngster comes here, and I get up first, my wife being arthritic she doesn't get up so soon, I get up and make t’kids their breakfast. And he always says how is it grandad, when you make our breakfast it always tastes different to me mam’s? His mother uses lard and I use beef dripping.
Yes, in the pan.
R- Yes. And kids can tell the difference, “Oh they are good…”
Aye. Fruit. What sort of fruit did you have most often Horace?
R - Apples. There were one or two orchards in Carleton, you could go on and buy a pennorth of apples, two pennorth of apples, anything say, wind falls. And certain times of the year there were a variety of pear that they couldn’t keep but they used to grow hundredweights did them trees and you could… And then the wind came, you could go and fill your cap for a penny. They were right good and sweet, but there were two orchards in Carleton but one has been built on now and the other one's still there. But that were that. And gooseberries as I say, a few raspberries out of the garden, and then you could get fruit at the shop. I remember going buying dried apple rings
(20 min)
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Aye .. Canadian, Aye.
R - You, you could buy apple rings and make pies out of them.
I still like them, I can eat them like sweets.
R - Dried apricots, I don't know whether there is such a thing now.
Yes there is yes. What vegetables did you have most often?
R- Well it’d be cabbage and Brussels and cauliflowers and peas, when there were peas available, and beans, broad beans, we grew the lot. And Brussels in Winter, Savoy cabbages.
I have a list of foods here Horace. I’ll give them to you and you tell me whether you had them every week, once a mouth, never or whatever it was. Bananas?
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R – I don’t think we ever had bananas. I don’t think they were ever fond of them.
Rabbit?
R- Rabbit? Rabbit any time. Me uncle used to bring them and sometimes they had a full charge of shot in them. He used to shoot them and he used to snare them. When they were snared they were all right but if they'd had a full charge of shot and the fur had been blown into them you'd he spitting pellets out.
How about fried foods, you know, did you have much fried food?
R- Fried liver and onions. Not many chops, mutton were considered rather expensive mutton and lamb, you’d get beef a lot cheaper and there is never bones much in beef.
You’ve already mentioned fish on Fridays, but what sort did your mother usually get?
R – It’d be cod, nearly always cod.
Steaks?
R- Cod steak, they’d bring the whole fish in you see, it hadn’t been frozen a month before it had been landed, they just chopped the steaks off.
Cheese?
R - Well I never liked cheese, there’d be plenty of cheese about but it’s a thing I can't do with at all.
Cow heel?
R- No.
Tripe?
R – Yes sometimes but not much.
Where did you get that from?
R- Butcher would have it sometimes.
Trotters?
R- No.
Black pudding?
R - Black pudding, but my mother used to make that, it were lovely. Pig killing time we were always having it. She used to make it in big dishes. And if you heard of anybody that were killing a pig she would send us round, “Tell ‘em to save me some blood.” And they’d give you fat, and liver and you had a right do. Then she always used to have some stewed mutton with it and potatoes and the black pudding, blood pudding we used to call it. Oh, onions and rice, oh it were really good. And I remember eating that. And after we were married she always used to send some, my wife used to love it. Different to ordinary black pudding.
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Eggs? Oh well, you said always plenty of eggs.
R- Yes.
Tomatoes?
R- No, I don't think there were many, you see they were a luxury, tomatoes.
Grapefruit?
R- No, never saw such a thing.
Sheep’s head?
R- Oh yes, sheep’s head. We’d get a sheep’s head and what they called the whole pluck for sixpence. That's the liver and the, heart and the lights. If you had a cat or anything you see, lights for the cat, but you'd get the lot for sixpence.
Yes, a lot of people don't realise that lights are the lungs aren't they.
R- Yes.
Did you ever have tinned food?
R- Very seldom. Tinned salmon. Aye, tinned salmon, sixpence a tin.
Yes. Aye, that was the stand by for the Sunday tea weren't it?
R – Yes it were, tinned salmon.
How about tinned fruit Horace?
R- No, not much.
No?
R – Not in my younger days but as we grew up there were more tins. It were coming into the country more.
Can you ever remember having any bad tins, you know, tins that were blown?
[It used to be quite common that a tin would be bad. You could tell them because the bacteria made gas which blew the end of the tin out in a bulge.]
R- No.
Yes, you didn't have much tinned food. Now why was that? Because there was no need for it, or your mother had something against it or it was an expensive way of buying or what?
R- Well, it was an expensive way of buying when you could buy fruit and stew it. And when rhubarb were in you had stewed Rhubarb and custard. And then sixty year since there weren't the tinned stuff about that there is now. More than sixty year since, seventy years since there weren't tinned food about. There were plenty of corned beef..
Argentine?
R- Yes, always the corned beef.
Aye. Did you drink tea?
R- Yes.
Cocoa?
R- Yes, we drank a lot of cocoa because at one time there were coupons in tins of cocoa and when you got so many you sent them away and got a box of chocolates and that were when we saw chocolate.
Aye, how about coffee?
R - No I don’t think we were coffee people. But an uncle of mine, the one that was a farmer, he always used to drink dandelion coffee.
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Made with roots?
R- Aye.
Aye, dried roots. I keep thinking I’ll try that, they tell me it's all right.
R - Well he did.
What did you have for Christmas dinner Horace?
R- Goose usually and a piece of pork. We always had a good do at Christmas, mother used to make her own pudding and a Christmas cake. She used to boil the puddings in the gas boiler and then have them hung up in the top of the kitchen. She made them weeks and weeks beforehand.
What was your favourite food do you think, when you were a child?
R- Anything. Nobody had any dislikes at home. If there were six of you at the table if anyone said “I don’t like that.” “Give me it.”
Yes. Tell me something Horace. I must admit that we are getting on to one of my personal grouses when I start talking about this. I've always said that I don’t think you can pay the chef or the cook, or whoever has cooked it, a finer compliment than to sit down and clear your plate. But there are very few that do it nowadays. Now you’d be brought up to clear your plate?
R- Yes, we cleared us plate and we were glad to do it, we were.
Yes, aye. I think you've probably hit the nail on the head there, you were glad to do it.
R- Yes. But when you are young and healthy, anything comes right, you see, you'd be out playing in the fields and you come home, you eat anything.
What do you think you'd have to eat, say the family was a bit hard up you know, after your father died, if things were a bit rough one week you know, and you were short, what would you have to eat that week?
R- We were never, we were never short, we never, we never missed a meal,
and never .. me mother never said this is all we have. There were never that ... even though we were poor. We’d never anything to spend, we’d no spending money, and I used to do all the errands for this bachelor uncle of mine .. And when it got further on into the first world war he used to give me a ha’penny, well you couldn’t buy anything for a ha’penny and so I said to him one Saturday “You know uncle Leonard, you can't buy anything for a ha’penny now.” He says “All right then, give us it back.” You know? He took it back and I got nowt, I had to do the shopping for nothing. You know? But you
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couldn't, 1 mean, there were nothing for a ha’penny. There were one time when you used to be able to go to the shop and look round the shelves and, and everything were a ha’penny, so many for a ha’penny, three for a ha’penny here, two for a ha’penny but not now.
When your father was working, did he come home for his meals?
(30 min)
R- No. He stopped in, had the dinner in, and cleaned, and did any repairing that mule, mules were driven by ropes, you know, the carriage were driven by ropes. If they had any ropes to replace and splice they'd do that in the dinner time. I used to take his dinner into the mill to him, and they were always in their bare feet, just a pair of thin cotton trousers and a thin shirt .. walking about on the bare flag floor.
That were on flags, they were spinning on flags there, were they?
R - Yes. Oh yes. Well, the machinery was in a three storey building, they wanted something firm, and mules work backwards and forwards you see ... And always very hot, kept it very warm.
Aye and humid?
R- Yes.
[Roy Greenwood, a master spinner, once told me that cotton spins best at the temperature and humidity it grew best in, 75 degrees Fahrenheit and at least 70% humidity.]
Did your dad always have the same food as the rest of the family, or did he sometimes hive something special?
R - I couldn’t say. We’d have our tea at four o’clock you see, straight from school and then he’d come home about half past five and we’d be out.
So his tea would be specially cooked for him anyway so many a time it could have been different.
R - It would.
Can you ever remember your mother going short to feed the rest of you?
R- No. We were never short of food, we were only short of money, loose money.
Yes. Who usually did the shopping?
R- Me mother. Or she had a book. If you know what I mean by a book. She’d take the book and go to the Co-op for such a thing. They wrote it down on the book and then me mother paid it on Friday.
Aye. So was she a big Co-oper?
R- Yes. It were right across the road from us.
Aye. She’d get groceries there obviously. Could she get meat there?
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R- No, they'd no butcher. There were a butcher called Dean, and she always shopped at Dean’s. There were three, no, four butchers in Carleton but she always shopped at Dean’s.
Four butchers in Carleton?
R – Yes, there were butcher farmers. There were only one that was a butcher, the other were farmers and butchers. And Dean’s and Archers joined at a cow. Overends sold a cow on their own and a chap called White, he were a farmer in a big way, and he’d a butcher’s shop in Skipton, and a butcher shop in Carleton you know. But the way things are now I’ll bet they don't sell, they'll not sell a cow in Carleton.
Aye, I can believe that.
R - But there were four butchers, four butchers in cows and sheep but you go down to the butcher's shop now and they've little squares of meat, a fiver!
Well, it's a funny thing, I was once talking to Jack Stansfield and the way he put it to me, he said the people that are at home at week end can't afford to buy a right joint, and he said the people that can afford to buy a right joint, aren't at home at week ends. And I think there is perhaps a lot of truth in it. I think you're quite possibly right there. Would you say there was any difference in prices, you know, the service you got or the quality, between say a little corner shop in Carleton and the shop in Skipton?
R – Well, there were more butcher shops in Skipton. You could probably go to some that would sell cheap cuts, you see, you'd get cheap cuts at Skipton. But when my mother died she were Dean’s oldest customer, she must have shopped at Dean’s always.
Can you remember anything about pawn shops when you were young?
R- No, nothing, nothing.
There wouldn't be a pawn shop in Carleton would there?
R - There were one in Skipton, Ledgard and Wynn’s, you know that shop?
Yes.
R - That were a pawn shop. In Newmarket Street, Ledgard and Wynn’s. And when we got married, forty-four or five years since, they moved out of Newmarket Street into that shop they are in now. And Alan Driver were his lad, like there were Ralph Wynn, he got into a big way, you know what the shop's like. And he were the pawn broker and Alan Driver were the lad behind the counter.
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So Ledgard & Wynn’s actually started off as pawn brokers?
R – Yes, they were pawn brokers up Newmarket Street in a little shop. And Alan Driver it ever we saw him he always said, and if he were talking to us two and if he were talking to anybody else he said Mr and Mrs Thornton were our first big customers when we came here. But all the stuff in the house came from Ledgard’s you see, we were always taught never to get anything until you had the money in your pocket. And we got everything we wanted, furnished the house throughout, just one bedroom but all downstairs and I paid for it the week before we were married. Everything and it were £107. Now then, there were a bedroom suite, there were tables, there were chairs, there were the sideboard, stairs carpet, every room carpeted. It were £100. And I took this money to him and he knocks seven pound off. That were just hundred pound. And we started life straight up. But this was a rented house and we’ve been in it ever since. They kept pestering us to buy it and finally we did buy it. How much do you think?
This house?
R- Yes.
When? How long ago?
R – Fifteen or twenty years since.
Well, this house fifteen or twenty years since, £400?
R - Five hundred.
Five hundred, aye.
R - But there were a low fireplace in here. Not this, but bath and hot and cold water and washbasin upstairs and for a house that were built in 1907 that were very modern. And apart from that door and the vestibule and the central beating everything’s the same. Look at this skirting board, about nine inches deep and they’re two inches now.
Aye, that’s it.
R – And, this, all this were in.
Yes, all the cornice on the ceiling there.
R - Yes, in 1907.
(850)
Now we'll get back to Ledgard and Wynn’s and pawnbroking. How did people, how did people look on pawnbrokers in those days?
R- Well, they'll look down upon anybody that went to t’pawn shop at Monday morning you know, and put the clock in. Well, they were the commonest, the lowest of the low. And you know, in a village you got fairly straight.
How much housekeeping money do you think your mother’d have for a week?
R- I have no Idea.
No idea.
R- I haven't a clue you see because my father was spinning. I don't know.
Now then, first world war. You’d he eight year old when it started. Have you any recollection of the war starting?
R- In a way, yes. I remember walking up Carleton past the Post Office and they used to have placards up, same as they have now. And Verdun had fallen, Verdun had fallen, in big letters. And why we’ve heard of that fall and whether they’d tripped up or what, I had to enquire about who Verdun were! And it were explained to me and that were the first thing I remember. And then another, conscription just one big word CONSCRIPTION. And what were conscription? And I can remember those two things about the first world war. And then the rationing and going queuing up.
Yes, now let’s see if we can just pin things down a bit. I’ve had somebody telling me about their husbands being in the Terriers and they were called up almost immediately. And they were called up so quickly that these people were left without a wage.
R - There would be.
And they were handing out, people were being given chits to go to the grocer. Have you, did you ever see anything like that? Have you any experience of anything like that?
R- No. Well an uncle of mine on me father's side, he were in the Territorials, he were in a lot of years and there were rumours of war starting and kept being rumours, and he packed it in before the war started. He'd probably be a bit to old to go, and he never did go so he must have been a fair age when he, he turned forty you see and he chucked it in or else he’d have had to go. And that’s the one that used to take me walking, and love of walking, all over the place we went, as a lad. A pair of big clogs on clumping along the road.
(900)
Was food short during the first world war?
R- Well, not to my knowledge. Potatoes, they were, you had a job to get potatoes sometimes when you were getting into the spring of the year.
Can you recall queuing for food apart from Maypole and margarine?
14
R- No, because your rations came through. You see, you got your ration card and we got down to frozen meat, we thought that were the end of the world. There were, there were lumps of frozen beef on the block.
Aye, Dewhurst’s, aye.
R – Aye, but the ordinary local butcher got it. But it were the end of the world to village folk when you were eating frozen meat, it were something you didn’t do, anybody that went to t’frozen shop, they were pretty low.
Did you think, do you think that your family were probably fed better during the first world war than they were before?
R- Well I can't remember you see. At ten years old, you see?
I were just wondering whether you had any opinion, you know? Can you think, you say you were eight when the first world war started. You were twelve or else thirteen when it finished and you’ve had time to think since. Obviously it was a great upheaval, can you think of any other ways in which it changed the sort of world that you knew, the first world war.
R- Well, there were. It all sort of went on above your head as a child. There were people being called up and then in a few weeks he's been killed. But it went over your head at twelve and thirteen and fourteen you see. It were in a world apart, and you saw those chaps coming over in their khaki, and the headmaster would have them up at the school, one of the old scholars you know, telling their tales about what happened and how patriotic it were and all that sort of thing. But it just went over your head. There's one thing I can remember, we were sat at home one night, and the gas started going down, they used to reduce pressure on the gasholder when there were Zeppelins about, and it went down and down and down, just left a glow. And happen about
(950)
after half an hour like that, and then it came up again. They must have got out of the vicinity. Such things as that you remember.
Did you ... you talk about Zeppelins, did you ever hear Zeppelins in Skipton?
R - No never. The only Zeppelin that we've seen were when the Graf Zeppelin flew over to America and came back right over Skipton.
Is that right?
R- Yes. Right over the top of Skipton and Carleton from Lothersdale way.
What year were that? Can you remember roughly, before the war or after?
R - No. After the war, after the first world war, when there were the Zeppelin.
But there is one thing, I can remember the first aeroplane I were near to and touched. It came down in a field in the Aire Valley, one dinner time. And they let all the kids out of the school to go and see it. And when we got there the pilot were being violently sick! I can remember that, all down t’side of the aeroplane and you couldn't credit it, all wire and canvas. However they could, however they could fly in such
like things. And there were a manager at Slingsby’s mill at Carleton called Braithwaite, he were only a young fellow and he had a big Harley Davidson motorbike, and he set off to see it and he took one of the office men, a chap called Herbert Airton on the back of the motorbike, and he were in such a hurry to get there they skidded at a corner and threw this fellow of and broke his leg. He never walked right after, he were always limping, and that was another thing I can remember. And there were another aeroplane came eventually, the same day, and there must have been a mechanic on it. Anyway, they got it right and then they both set off together and looped the loop. That were the first contact with aeroplanes. And the first motorcar I can remember, a Doctor Kitchen coming from Skipton into Carleton. All brass and brass lamps in t’front and brass radiator. That were the first motorcar.
Up to then of course everything had been horses.
R- Yes. And you used to go gathering it in the road.
Horse muck?
R - Horse muck, aye. You had a wagon you called them, two wheels on,
two iron wheels, you used to get them from the mill and go gathering horse muck and selling it at sixpence a wagonload. And there were such a lot of horses. Slingsby’s had all the coal collected from Skipton station for the Carleton Mill. There were a continual stream of horse and carts all day long, carting coal through Carleton. Then there were the carrier’s carts carting cotton, and everything had to come by road. Well it had to be road all the time but carts, carts and horses.
Things have changed. Thing’s have changed.
SCG/13 February 2003
6,994 words